By Gavin Boyle
ABC tapped Martin Short to host a new season of MATCH GAME, continuing the network’s revival of older game shows.
“The old games themselves are good. I would love to try new games, but the stuff that [past producers] did — they were geniuses,” ABC alternative series chief Robert Mills told Vulture in 2019 when the network was first working on a lineup of game show reboots. “These games are incredibly well-built machines. They’re time-tested. You know that they work. The nostalgia helps, and that’s another selling point.”
MATCH GAME sees four contestants working to match as many of the panel of six celebrities as possible as they answer fill-in-the-blank questions. The original show launched in 1962 and ran in some version until 1998, when it took an 18 year break until being revived in 2016 with Alec Baldwin as host. The Alec Baldwin-led ran show aired for five seasons and served as a part of ABC’s “Sunday Fun & Games” programming which also featured CELEBRITY FAMILY FEUD and THE $100,000 PYRAMID.
Short will serve as an executive producer on the show, along with Alycia Rossiter. The show is set to film in Montreal, Canada, and is expected to begin releasing episodes this summer or fall.
During his time as host on MATCH GAME, Baldwin explained that many celebrities were flocking to the genre because of the freedom and flexibility it added to their schedules.
“This game show thing, it’s a quick trip. We’re here for a couple of weeks, we bang out a season,” Baldwin told Vulture in 2019. “Elizabeth Banks, maybe she’d like to stay home with her kids like me. Joel McHale would like to stay home with his kids, like me. I’ve got four kids. I’m 61 years old and I got four kids, 5 and under.”
Baldwin has remained focused on his family since leaving MATCH GAME, especially after being involved in the tragic RUST shooting, which left the cinematographer of the movie dead.
“My heart has been broken a thousand times this past year. And things in my life May never be the same. Lots of changes coming,” Baldwin said in 2022. “But my family has kept me alive. They are my reason for living. And @hilariabaldwin, too.”
Though they have focused on giving their children good lives, Baldwin and his wife Hilaria admit that the shooting has had an impact on their kids.
“Our lives are very, very different,” Baldwin said earlier this year. “Our children have been forced to recognize that. They’ve been forced to deal with that, with us in their own way.”
“They’ve had some really unfortunate realizations about things that are going on,” Hilaria added. “Life will forever be different. Halyna lost her life in the most unthinkable tragedy; a son lost his mom. We are going to feel and carry this pain forever. This will be a part of our family story.”
Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see celebrities place more of a focus on their families, whether it be through carving out time in their schedules or taking on less time consuming roles, like game show hosting.
Read Next: Alec Baldwin Describes Impact of RUST Shooting on His Kids
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